Version History of Silverlight 5.0 (RC 1)

TrickPlay allows video to be played at different speeds and supports fast-forward and rewind. At up to twice the speed, audio pitch correction allows users to watch videos while preserving a normal audio pitch.

Improved power awareness prevents the screen saver from being shown while watching video and allows the computer to sleep when video is not active.

Fluid user interface enables smoother animation within the UI. Inter-Layout Transitions allow developers to specify animations to apply when elements are added, removed or re-ordered within a layout. This provides smoother user experiences when, for example, items are inserted into a list.

Silverlight 5 extends features of the ‘Trusted Application’ model to the browser for the first time. These features, when enabled via a group policy registry key and an application certificate, mean users won’t need to leave the browser to perform complex tasks:

Host HTML content as a Web browser control within the Silverlight application. HTML pages, such as help content or e-mail, can be integrated within the application.

Read and write files to the user’s My Documents folder, making it easier to find media files or create local copies of reports.

Launch Microsoft Office and other desktop programs. Users can open Microsoft Outlook and create an e-mail message, or send a report to Word utilizing the power of Office.

Access devices and other system capabilities by calling into application COM components. Users can access a USB security card reader or a bar-code scanner.

Enjoy full keyboard support in full screen, which enables richer kiosk and media viewing applications.

Call existing unmanaged code directly from within Silverlight with PInvoke.